54. I keep waiting for that one seminal Joseph Welch-Joseph McCarthy

moment ("Have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency?") and it never comes. When one of the few semi-decent Repigs has finally had enough. Maybe Colin Powell? He might plausibly be able to shame the Repigs into STFU-land.

10. President Obama can't speak out on this

his position won't allow it. We as citizens must speak out. The lack of respect for this office reflects on each and every one of us. We must stand up and demand an apology. GOP has personally insulted me. Insulted you.

12. +1. They've insulted me and the people I care about, also threatened us all.

11. Supposedly according to Martin Bashir's show, right wingers are high fiving Munro

in their website lairs. I don't mean to sound alarmist, but if I were Obama I'd be careful about appearing in public. They're getting desperate and nasty. You just know if the unthinkable happened to Obama they wouldn't show an ounce of respect and would be high-fiving that too.

89. Tucker Carlson is a festering boil on the ass of journalism, if not humanity

15. Especially during the SOTU!

I agree completely. The GOP has encouraged a lack of respect for President Obama, first by they, themselves, interrupting speeches. Now they laugh and guffaw when someone else does it to the President.

As a citizen, *I* am interested in hearing what the President has to say without him being interrupted or heckled. He is the President of the United States of America, and that alone, makes him deserving of respect.

22. If I were a vindictive person.........

I would suggest this reporter might be an ideal candidate for extraordinary rendition to some far off land.

But I am not. We are headed toward total decomposition if we do not restore civility and respect in public discourse. The problem is you have one party that is so tied to strict ideology and hatred for the President and his supporters that any type of reconciliation is unlikely.

I have no problem with open, vigorous debate provided it is fact-based, respectful and promotes an understanding and advocacy of competing views and opinions. But what we have going on in the country is far from that. It is just mud slinging from the Reich wing. They don't care if they put glass shards, nails or shrapnel in the mud as they toss it across. They don't even aim very well. They just hope it lands with a splat and someone gets sprayed by it.

55. My wife is even more tepid in support for Obama than I (altho

she grudgingly concedes that the lesser of two evils is a valid stance this year).

When I mentioned the incident to her a short while ago and said I wished Obama would say "Fuck you, you motherfucker(s)," she immediately agreed and said she'd become far more enthusiastic for him were he to do so.

Just one good, tactical F-bomb and Obama's approval rating would hit 99%!

45. I agree, it's gone too far.

First at the State of the Union, and now this.

George W. Bush wouldn't have tolerated it, he probably would have stuck the perpetrator in Gitmo, never to be seen or heard from again.

It was really hard to have respect for Bush, as he had no respect for the American people. But he was appointed pResident by the SCOTUS, so there wasn't much choice. President Obama was duly elected to represent everyone, including those who treat him without the respect he deserves.

51. Can someone tell me what happened? I've been out all day and missed the fireworks, I guess. Thx! nt

62. Obama made a formal policy announcement in the Rose Garden on an issue

related to immigration and a blogger with a day press pass (not a regular press credential) interrupted him at least twice and then kept talking over Obama as he tried to finish his statement. You can hear him talking in the background over Obama even after the interruptions so it seems like he was just there to obstruct.

68. Thank you! nt

52. Thank you DearAbby.

For this remarkable man fighting against all the odds to build back our country, to be treated like this should be so offensive to any sane person as to bring an immediate rebuke. And yet we hear nothing and the disrespect not only continues, but escalates. Luckily I don't hear about a lot of it, because I'm far away outside the country, but I cry a little inside often over the things I do hear.

Sick powerful people don't apologize. Apology represents weakness to them. I have relatives who have told me how sad and pathetic it makes one to apologize. Even if you are wrong you never admit it.

When I was out in the streets before the Iraq War my sister threatened to kick me out of her house because she said I was disrespecting her President. I pointed out that my disrespect was for War not the President nor the office. She and her husband now cheer on the disrespect for President Obama and send me disgusting viral anti-Obama emails.

The haters are a tough nut to crack and apologies are not their thing, but stand up to them we must, so let's all keep pounding on them with a very big hammer; APOLOGY, APOLOGY, APOLOGY. I too am sick of their twisted hatred.

67. Absolute rubbish

Not one Congressperson shouted LIAR to Bush at the SOU
Not one governor pointed fingers in Bush's face and not one member of the WH press reporters interrupted a Bush statement.

Not one Supreme Court judge ever shook his head at a President at the SOU (and Obama has been proven correct)
What's more Bush was a fucking LIAR.
It is one thing when citizens heckle government officials -they have that right but it is completely different when elected officials attempt to suggest that the President is not legitimate.

63. K&R n/t

65. "lèse majesté"

"Lese-majesty /ˌliːz ˈmædʒɨsti/ (French: lèse majesté ; Law French, from the Latin laesa maiestas, "injured majesty"; in English, also lese majesty or leze majesty) is the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.

I, too, am offended and sick of the Office of the President being sullied and degraded by ignorant, poor-mannered assholes.

71. Why should they respect ours? We didn't respect theirs. Some of us even called Bush an idiot.

I know what you'll say. Bush WAS an idiot, IS an idiot, WILL ALWAYS BE an idiot. Yes, but in his case it was disrespectful to tell the truth. It hurt his feelings something awful. You could see how he cringed whenever he said something he realized was stupid, and he'd get all defensive about it. How many nights he must have cried himself to sleep, poor man.

Now, President Obama doesn't have insecurities like that about his intellect. He knows he's smart. So it can't bother him as much when idiots disagree with him. He just pities them. You can see it in his eyes whenever he has to deal with John Boehner.

72. Sorry, but a journalist interrupting a President during a Rose Garden statement is unprecedented.

78. Uncouth and Unprecedented

I mean really, during a Rose Garden speech? These ass hats have no shame and no sense of protocol, even if they despise the man. Cowardly fuckwittage by this fool. Bought and paid for by Fucker Carlson for sure. What a shit show.

84. Good luck with that.

85. It's not like Obama went AWOL during the Vietnam War.

Then when Bush ran for President and he was selected by the Supreme Court to be the resident of the White House in 2000, we were told to STFU.
We were also told not to criticize the Hamburger-in-Cheese during a time of war.
Like we might cause Bush to drink hard whiskey and choke on a pretzel and fall down and hurted himself.

94. So you respect all Presidents?

95. We NEVER interrupted a Rose Garden announcement...

We NEVER interrupted a State of the Union Speech.
We NEVER vowed to oppose everything proposed by the Bush Admin - even things we were in favor of to begin with - in order to defeat him at the polls - even if it meant trashing the economy.
We NEVER threatened his life.

108. Back in the GWB years...

I had a British co-worker who put up a defaced picture of W in the workroom with some derogatory joke on it. Democrat or Republican I thought it was bs to diss the President of the US like that; but this guy saw so much of that treatment of Bush he figured it was totally cool to slam him. He was corrected. As is anyone that talks crap about Obama, other than policy disagreements.

I'd say Obama is getting more publicized cases if Lack of Deference than Bush by his co-workers in the Press and Congress, but as far as general disrespect, I don't think he's getting it any worse than Bush. Try making a caricature of Obama as a monkey, as was commonly done with Bush, as see how far that gets you.

It sounds like this reported is being duly handled by his peers, and he's probably lost his spot in the press room; hope it was worth it.